keep calm and hit Bloodlust

13,000

I crossed the 13,000 achievement point threshold this weekend. Well, 13,100 really. It started with crossing off some low-hanging fruit on Friday - bowing to baby Kroshik for When in Ihgaluk, then finally finding the Dread Ambercrusher and crossing Over Their Heads off my list. Then while in a heroic queue (gotta get that Anglers rep), I caught a Shimmershell Snail in Darkshore and earned That’s a Lot of Pet Food.

There was idle discussion after of doing some achievement point things (mostly to help with Rades and Narci’s ongoing battle to be top nerdpoint person in TTGF) when Rades mentioned he needed a bunch of the troll heroic achievements - so off we went to ZA, earning Bear-ly Made It (finally got a bear!) and Tunnel Vision. Didn’t quite get Ring Out! (we weren’t all in to begin with), but we went back the next day and got it. There was also a surprise invite by a guildie for The Light of Dawn, which also earned us Neck Deep in Vile somehow - I couldn’t see it because I always, ALWAYS get blown off the platform by Arthas’ transition. Not the phase itself, but the actual transition between phases, he just explodes. Oh well.

After the group broke up, I decided to do some more soloing. I’d had a lot of luck recently getting the achievements in the Hour of Twilight heroics that I had not managed to get previously - namely Severed Ties and Lazy Eye. (Still working on That’s Not Canon! - I got overwhelmed by demons last time I tried; it didn’t seem like Tyrande was doing much of anything at all.) So I decided to work on some more achievements that would actually count for the meta-achievement, and headed off towards Throne of the Tides. I was glad you can fly over Vashj’ir - my shaman has never been there! Fun fact: if you’re in no phase at all, the elementals from the Thrall/Aggra “Elemental Bonds” questline are hanging around the outside edge of the entrance of Throne.

So I headed into Throne, made my way through the packs of trash and the gauntlet (not TOO bad, although my attempt to skip the gauntlet led to me doing it backwards by accident), and pretty easily got Old Faithful. The second boss was a piece of cake - although now that I think about it, I probably could have skipped him, too - and then I got to Neptulon for a shot at Prince of Tides. The first time, I overestimated how many HP the Unyielding Behemoth had (and underestimated Neptulon’s heath) and so I used no AOE on the murlocs, which led to Neptulon dying, which led to:

The second time I knew what to expect and it was a cakewalk. It helped that when you wipe on the Neptulon encounter by Neptulon dying it just… despawns everything. Very easy, no time wasted.

Onward and upward. I’ve got a couple more achievements in my sights - I have maybe 4 more days of dailies until I hit exalted with the Anglers, which will get me The Anglers (obviously), Pandaren Ambassador, and We’re Going to Need More Saddles. There’s also lots of low-hanging fruit left on my death knight - which I’ll probably tackle after she gets to 90! - and I finally built my Sulfuron Hammer, so now I get to farm for the Eye.